RFC 1530 (rfc1530) - Page 2 of 7

Principles of Operation for the TPC

RFC 1530             General Principles and Policy          October 1993


Overview of Services in the TPC.INT Subdomain

   The tpc.int subdomain is organized as a cooperative, an association
   organized for the purpose, without gain to itself, of rendering
   service as defined in this document and as further defined by the
   membership of the cooperative.  Members of the tpc.int subdomain
   cooperative are defined as those Internet sites who provide access to
   services as defined in this document and as periodically amended by
   the membership as represented by the Board of Arbitration and
   Conciliation for the tpc.int subdomain.

   The primary purpose of the tpc.int subdomain is to provide
   transparent mappings between users of general-purpose computers on
   the Internet and special-purpose devices directly connected to the
   telephone network.  This mapping extends the population reachable
   from the Internet by providing a communications path to devices not
   otherwise directly addressable.

   The initial remote printing facility is built on top of the
   electronic mail protocols of the Internet, including RFC 822 [5] and
   MIME [6].  Because the remote printing service uses the message-
   handling facilities of the Internet, this service is also available
   to message-handling domains that are connected to the Internet
   through application-layer gateways (e.g., X.400-compatible systems
   [7], UUCP-based message-handling environments [8], and commercial
   services such as AT&T Mail), MCI Mail), SprintMail), and CompuServe)
   [9]).

Operation of Name Service in the TPC.INT Subdomain

   Services in the Internet are identified with a service target name as
   listed in the Domain Name System (DNS).  These target names are
   looked up in the DNS and the appropriate resource records associated
   with the name are returned.  After the name lookup has been
   completed, the initiator exchanges a series of IP packets with an
   Internet site which provides access to a service accessible through
   the tpc.int subdomain.

   In the case of remote printing, the DNS MX resource record is used to
   register those Internet sites that provide access to the remote
   printing facility.  Specifically, an Internet site running a remote
   printer server registers itself in the DNS as being willing to
   provide access to some portion of the telephone system numbering plan
   as registered by one or more MX records within the tpc.int subdomain.

   For example, if the host hewes.radio.com is willing to provide remote
   printing to devices with telephone numbers beginning with the prefix
   +1-415-336, the host would be listed in the Domain Name System with



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